Beth Zigmund, M.D., associate professor of radiology at the Larner College of Medicine, director of lung cancer screening at the University of Vermont Medical Center, and a member of the steering committee of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, published an opinion piece in MedPage Today on the the growing menace of climate change and the dangers of undoing the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect our climate and air.
The so-called endangerment finding is a rule that gives the EPA the authority to regulate air-polluting, climate-warming gases. The endangerment finding was established by the EPA in 2009 to protect the public from six planet-warming greenhouse gases by regulating them as pollutants. The rule rests on a 2007 Supreme Court decision requiring the EPA to make a science-based determination on the effects of these pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The endangerment finding underpins longstanding health and environmental protections, including vehicle and power plant emissions standards.
At the direction of the current U.S administration, the endangerment finding has been placed under review due to financial considerations. Without it, Zigmund contends, Americans will be sicker and poorer for generations to come.